HR and Employee Screening Issues Affecting your Business

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An Update on Salary History Bans

As your trusted partner, we want to make sure you are up to date on issues that may affect you. Which is why we wrote about salary history bans last year.

In that article we discussed that a growing number of cities and states are voting on or implementing legislation in favor of a salary history ban during pre-employment screening—prohibiting employers from asking wage history questions to job applicants or considering previous applicant salaries as a determining factor in employment decisions.

Asking for an applicant’s salary history may seem an innocuous enough question; one of many that has been standard pre-employment practice for years. But like criminal history, it may lead to an unintended bias against applicants.

Asking for a person’s salary history can perpetuate pay disparity.

Think of it this way; an employee works diligently for five years—earning incremental pay increases along the way—and now wants to apply that experience to a new position at a much larger company. Unfortunately, the larger company asks for the employee’s salary history before offering the new position instead of simply paying market value. That could easily result in pay disparity because this person made less money at the previous position. If this scenario doesn’t seem fair to you, you are not alone.

We’re keeping an eye on this growing trend.

As of August 24, 2018, the following states and cities/counties have implemented salary history bans:

State-wide BanEffective DateCity/County BanEffective Date

California Jan 1, 2018 San Francisco, CA Jul 1, 2018

Connecticut Jan 1, 2019 Chicago, IL Apr 10, 2018

Delaware Dec 14, 2017 Louisville, KY May 17, 2018

Hawaii Jan 1, 2019 New Orleans, LA Jan 25, 2017

Massachusetts Jul 1, 2018 Kansas City, MO Jul 26, 2018

New Jersey Feb 1, 2018 New York City, NY Oct 31, 2017

New York Jan 9, 2017 Albany County, NY Dec 17, 2017

Oregon Oct 6, 2017 Westchester County, NY Jul 9, 2018

Pennsylvania Sep 4, 2018 Philadelphia, PA (TBD)

Puerto Rico Mar 8, 2017 Pittsburgh, PA Jan 30, 2017

Vermont Jul 1, 2018

And, it’s very likely this trend will continue. Please know that A-Check is keeping a close eye on this evolving legislation, and remain committed to developing solutions that ensure you have the ability to continue making informed pre-employment decisions.